…as part of the conspiracy to distract us from learning that Jesus had a wife and kids.
The most disturbing and credible conspiracy theory is that people claiming to be CTers post foolish glop in these threads in order to discredit conspiracy theorists. You can’t prove this isn’t so, and besides: MK Ultra.
It mostly sounds strange because you only have one “conspiracy” and one secret project that fails the “conspiracy theory” test.
The Manhattan Project was only a “conspiracy” in the very loosest sense that it was a secret project that was run by the government. It fails as a CT on multiple levels:
[ul]
[li]it was a specific war-time project that only lasted four years, not an ongoing event or an ongoing cover-up of a single event, that lasted for a long time until it was "exposed;[/li][li]following the war, all sorts of people associated with it came forth with their memories of their participation; it has even been documented in widely published books, (thus, there is no years-long “secret” continuing with no information escaping to the outside world);[/li][li]there is no sooper sekrit intention behind the project; it was organized to produce a nuclear weapon, which it did, and that intention and its results are known to the whole world;[/li][li]It was not a “conspiracy” in any normal usage of that word, with a small cadre of people trying to do something illegal;[/li][li]it was certainly never a “conspiracy theory” with people outside the project making wild accusations and trying to let the public know what was “really” going on[/ul][/li]
The issue of the Virgin Birth is even less of a Conspiracy Theory, (and to call it a “conspiracy” of any sort is ludicrous. (Some) early Christians asserted a myth about Jesus–about whom they had very little actual historical or biographical information or sources–that his birth was miraculous, with God arranging for him to be born of a virgin. Others did not happen to consider that myth worth worrying about and–still lacking any actual historical or biographical records–described a different life for him. Neither version of the story involves going to the trouble to hide actual historical records or creating fake documents to “prove” their views or mislead their followers. There is no group that got together to “conspire” to tell their story in a particular way, just different authors writing things that they thought would be edifying to their followers.
(Now, in very recent years, a few people, jumping on the Conspiracy Theory bandwagon of lunatics, have created strange “Conspiracy Theories” about everything from the Resurrection, (The Passover Plot), to the Virgin Birth, but all of those nutters have to indulge in wild speculation that does not even make sense and about which they have absolutely no historical information. A Conspiracy Theory that is invented 2,000 years after an event is less a CT and more just efforts by loonies to promote book sales.)
It is possible that there are conspiracies involving development of weapons technologies. It is possible that there was a Manhattan Project and it is possible that there is HAARP. It is possible that Jesus had a wife and it is possible that Jesus had children. It is possible that Jesus was born of a virgin and it is possible that Jesus rose from the dead.
Now that I asserted what is possible (of course, it is not possible that Jesus rose from the dead in the same sense that it is possible that Jesus had children, but I won’t get into that here) I’m going to evaluate the claims of the JFK assassination, 9/11, and the New World Order.
The JFK assassination. The Warren Commission concluded that LHO acted alone; however, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
9/11. There is no House Select Committee for 9/11, only a Commission Report; however, the 9/11 Commision concluded that 9/11 was the result of a conspiracy (Al Qaeda) not a conspiracy theory (the government).
The New World Order. George Washington, in a letter dated October 24, 1798, wrote:
The fact that the doctrines of the Illuminati spread in the United States is evidence that they were (or are) a strong organization.
Based on errors and bad evidence like the dictabelt recording, yes, they did. This proves that when you use bad evidence and make mistakes, you get the wrong conclusion.
No, it isn’t. It indicates that some of their ideas were popular with the founders of the U.S., but doesn’t indicate they were the ones who spread them. Then we get to the the minor issue of the group not existing for 200 years and the lack of evidence that they exist or were tied to the NWO thing. You seem to be spending your energy arguing a minor point and not touching the big issue (because there’s no evidence for it).
This conversation would be a lot more productive if you had any clue regarding eighteenth century history and philosophy.
Your citation is to a letter written by George Washington the year the second silly book about the Illuminati was published. So, just as today, we have people talking about “conspiracies” about world domination and then pointing to think tanks such as the Trilateral Commission, pretending that they have real power and a “secret” motive, people in Washington’s time reacted to the events in France and talked about non-existent associations. Some of the ideas that the Illuminati discussed during their brief existence were certainly floating around. But those ideas were being discussed widely throughout Europe. They tended to revolve around attempts to describe a rationalist means of governance. There were many such discussions in France, Italy, England, the German states and elsewhere long before Weishaupt formed his little group in Bavaria. The people who joined his group tended to be college professors–hardly a collection of the powerful. When Barruel and Robison wrote their books, the name of the Illuminati became associated with those ideas–just as, today, you can find a lot of people talking about the ideas of the Tea Party without bothering to note that libertarian ideas have been discussed in this country for decades. It is nothing more than the association of a few ideas that have been discussed for years with a named group that has been publicized more recently. It does not mean that the ideas originated within the group or that only members of that group would be aware of those ideas and it certainly does not mean that the group, (already disbanded for twelve years before their name was revived by a couple of cranks looking to publish books), were spreading “their” ideas through secret and dangerous methods.
This statement reminds me of the device frequently used to shoot down liberal ideas (i.e. civil rights legislation) by finding support for them in Communist doctrine. Finding some overlap in philosophy between Illuminati doctrines and that of later thinkers does not mean that the latter were Illuminati-inspired or that the Illuminati was a “strong organization”.
It is possible that Kozmik is the lost twin of Judy “It Could Happen!” Tenuta.
Some of the ideas of the Illiminati were popular with the founders of the U.S. Ok. And if they weren’t the ones who spread them then who did?
Goethe, Herder, and the dukes of Gotha and Weimar joined his group - not exactly what you’d call college professors.
I can’t trace any specific ideas, but like I said and like tomndebb explained in more detail, from what I can tell their ideas were general Enlightement stuff. Which is not something European monarchs necessarily liked to see- hence the fact that they were infiltrated and suppressed after a few years.
Yes, CT’s are very scary indeed for the masses. Human sheople are genetically geared for following what “authority” says along with staying inside their comfort zones. In 1st grade, I refused to play checkers on the black squares, and would try to convince others to play on the red squares. Reactions varied from confusion to shaking in fear over breaking the rule of playing on the black squares.
I shudder to think what aliens must say about us humans when they email back to their mother planet.
You say like people refuse to believe in CTs because they find them scary. That’s entirely incorrect. People generally refuse to believe in these things because the theories are (on the whole) stupid and/or ridiculous. For people who do believe in them, the scariness is part of their appeal. However you do get points for saying “sheeple.” I didn’t think anybody did that unironically anymore.
Pretty much everyone who had been discussing the notions of a Rationalist state for the previous century, or so. Your question is rather like asking “Who spread the ideas of a more restricted government with fewer powers, lower taxes, less spending, and smaller debt before the creation of the Tea party?”. Those ideas did not originate in 2009, even if they are commonly called “Tea Party” ideas, now.
Picking out four individuals–three of whom were close associates in Weimar, only one of the 1800, or so, German states–is hardly a resounding rebuttal to the point that the majority of those in the Illuminati club were college professors. Besides the dukes of Weimar and Gotha, can you name any other individual who wielded great political power? (Even Goethe and Herder were outside anything resembling a power structure other than their ability to write persuasive treatises–much as college professors might.)
Ok.
That question is like asking, “What could be worse than anarchism?”
Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria
Why do you even post in this thread if you are not even going to pay attention to the stuff you are reading to “support” your arguments?
From Illuminati - Wikipedia
Looking good, so far, but the sentence continues:
If you consider him to be a significant supporter of the Illuminati, I would have to say they would hope to never encounter someone who opposed them.
= = =
Look, you have spent several pages trying to hold up the Illuminati as some sort of underground cabal that is dragging the world to ruin in the imaginary New World Order. Thus far, you have demonstrated that you entered this thread with no serious understanding of who the Illuminati actually were, (past tense: they’re dead, Jim), no firm grasp of the Enlightenment and its ideas or of eighteenth century politics or political philosophy, no evidence for an actual New World Order conspiracy, and now you are demonstrating that you are not even reading your own sources.
It really is time for you to give it up. There comes a time when you are digging yourself deeper that you should really stop digging.
This is silly. It is not even on topic.
You asked who could have spread the ideas that the Illuminati proposed if they were gone.
I pointed out that their ideas were actually older than the group, itself, and that numerous people were spreading those ideas.
I demonstrated that with an analogy that there is a certain form of libertariansim that has been around for years and that is currently championed by the Tea Party movement and further noted that your question, (how could the ideas get around without the group), was exactly the same as asking how libertarian ideas could get around without the Tea Party. It really was not a difficult concept. Asking whether another form of (non)government could be worse is really unrelated to anything in the discussion.
I am, again, persuaded that you are not really paying attention to anything beyond your own Idée fixe.
In a past thread I got into an argument with someone over whether or not colleges today actively discriminate against Asians or not. What I found was that when it came to those who assumed the conspiracy-theoretic mindset, counter-evidence was useless.
The SAT stops mattering past a certain point? Doesn’t matter – if an admissions officer said this, they must have been lying to cover up their discrimination. People who get accepted can be demonstrably shown to have profiles containing more than just scores? Doesn’t matter – the “soft factors” are just an excuse to be racist. Berkeley’s admission history shows a clear counter-example to the hypothesis based on its race-blind admissions pivot in an Asian-centric location? Ignored. Activities are consistent among countless schools? Irrelevant; the Ivies used to discriminate against Jews and Asians! The list goes on.
The problem is that conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable by their believers. Any attempt to provide counter-evidence is futile. The evidence is either accused of being faked, or it’s ignored/misunderstood altogether. Conspiracy theorists also tend to rely on shoddy science/facts/speculation and are extremely guilty of confirmation bias to the point where ANYTHING that might even remotely support their hypothesis, no matter how tenuous, is accepted. But mounds of evidence pointing the other direction? Nope!
What sucks, though, is when some secretive, sketchy conspiracy theory turns out to be true. Yes, colleges used to discriminate by race unfairly. Yes, things like MK Ultra existed. Yes, there was a dishonest “incident” via the Gulf of Tonkin. Yes, the WMD/Iraq thing was a mess.
This is all hindsight bias, though. You also have to keep in mind that a conspiracy becomes harder to maintain the bigger it becomes. Someone always leaks, and evidence becomes too hard to hide. In order to keep a mass conspiracy hidden, it has to be indistinguishable from that conspiracy not existing in the first place, and that’s incredibly difficult to pull off in terms of maintaining that level of ironclad consistency. Such conspiracies are very unlikely to exist.
This is why conspiracy theories tend to get rejected. When someone holds onto an extremely convoluted, improbable, tenuous, ill-informed, emotionally-driven theory and refuses to listen to reason… it’s not good. It’s like talking to a crazy person. They’ll believe whatever they want to believe even if the evidence is missing or not very compelling because “everyone’s in on it” without acknowledging just how difficult that would actually be to pull off.
Yes absolutely in the UK there is exactly the same response. Even CT sites would seem to be mere containment exercises. So why would people not wish to hear the truth. Fear!!! Fear of losing what they have been duped into thinking is security and freedom. Nobody wants to bite the hand that feeds them and so they obediently carry on accepting even the most blatantly unbelievable explanations of scenarios that are called into question.
And, you always get what you got as a first response, the shills and plants asking for proof. Nobody is out to prove anything but it is always usefull to get folks to consider a different angle on something, that is called healthy debate. Only those with a vested interest in maintaining status quo dismiss out of hand and demand proof. Never mind proof just think about it for Christ sake.
I disagree that it’s about fear. People demand proof because proof is essential for establishing the truth value in something. There’s also a difference between healthy debate and crackpottery that gets used to further some agenda.
Also, “unbelievable explanations” are not always so. It’s like how Creationists oftentimes say stuff like “evolutionists are just afraid of the truth – they know their theory forces them to stand by blatantly unbelievable explanations, when I can prove the Earth is only 10,000 years old” and then proceed to display an utterly abysmal understanding of science and ignorance of evidence.
Like El_Kabong said, usually it’s trivial to pick apart an argument when you actually understand the subject matter well enough. It just becomes impossible when crackpots assume their ignorance is as good as someone else’s knowledge.
He may not have been a supporter of the Illuminati, but do you consider him someone who wielded great political power?
However, it does not follow that there could not be an “underground cabal”.
tomndebb was asking for members of the Illuminati who wielded great political power. You seem to have missed the point to the greatest extent possible.
And I give him members of the Illuminati who wielded great political power - two; the dukes of Weimar and Gotha.